I am a bit of a practical, crafty, frugal greenie who likes to garden, cook, preserve, ferment and bake bread. I live with a bunch of chooks, a flock of quails, sixteen native bee hives, a cat, a dog and a husband. Please join us in our homesteading adventures! :)

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Search This Blog

Quick easy christmas tags!

By
Practical Frog

This year I am making some Christmas biscuits to give to workmates and various friends as Christmas Gifts. I have found clear bags to put them into and then decided that I needed a small gift tag to go with it.

Its probably quicker to buy 40 gift tags for $2 from a cheapy shop but it seems silly to me to give a handmade gift and then to attach a shop bought tag to go with it.

So after a quick look in the craft room - I decided that I was good to go and had enough bits and bobs to make a few super easy Christmas-y gift tags for my homemade hand made presents!

Here's what I did...

(Please excuse the bad photos. My phone does not take good photos and the camera battery goes flat 1/2 an hour after it is charged up...)

I found 4 pieces of red and green A4 card and chopped them in to 12 pieces to give me a tag base to work from.﻿

Using a piece of last years wrapping paper that went with the tag colours, I cut some 2cm wide strips from the wrapping paper.

And stuck them to each tag. I decided to go for an offset strip but there is no reason why you couldn't put them in the middle, across the middle, at the bottom or anything that looks good to you!

Then I trimmed up the edges

And cut them into tag shapes by cutting the corners off one end.

Then I put holes in the small end with a hole punch...

And gilded the edges with a gold stamp pad.

I found some wrapped candy canes at the Cheapy shop (15 for $2)

And they threaded perfectly through the holes giving the tag some weight, texture and another yummy to eat all at the same time! The string will tie onto the sealed biscuit bags and I can write a message on the back of the tag, as in this case, the back of the card is white.

You could print a message out on your computer and stick it to the back of the tag if you wanted to as well.

Nice and easy! Cheap if you have the bits already. Quite quick and can be adapted to any colour scheme that you desire. You could write the persons name on a bauble in glitter pen, thread that through the hole instead of the candy cane and then they could put it in their own tree for a calorie reduced version!

Silver tags with a patterned silver paper with a silver bauble would be very classy (as would gold) or you could use your wrapping paper to make matching tags. There are lots of Christmas decorations that you could use instead of a candy cane like snowflakes or hanging Santa's, it depends what you are in the mood to create!

Have fun!

Score card:Green-ness: 5/5 for using left overs from another project and not buying a commercial product!
Frugal-ness:
5/5 for not spending more than $2!Time cost:
Maybe about 20 minutes to make 30 of these...Skill level:
Cutting and pasting - oh and threading this time!Fun-ness: Great fun - and people love home made stuff so much!

Popular posts from this blog

We live in Queensland. We have cockroaches. Lots of cockroaches! Why the NSW rugby team is called the Cockroaches is a mystery to me - surely ours are not only bigger but more plentiful??? At any rate, I don't like living with them (and I'm quite sure they are not so fond of me at the moment!!) and I have been going through the usual gauntlet of sprays, solutions and bombs to get rid of them...

But I'm not so keen on the chemical aspect of all this spraying and bombing. I hate the smell and can almost feel disease and cancer growing in me every time I spray. I'm OK with the resident cockies getting a lungful of chemicals and then keeling over but I feel its impolite (and probably illegal) if my guests and family members do the same thing!!!

We went through a faze of killing them by hand (and flyswatter and rolled up newspaper and underfoot) but its hard and frustrating work and it probably was only culling the dumb and slow ones - leaving the smart fast ones to breed!!!

We have an eight year old cat who we got as a stray about six years ago. The vet reckoned she was about two when we got her and we did all the right things and got her spayed and vaccinated and all that stuff. She loves people and no matter where you are in the house or garden, she will not be far away. She really good with kids and will put up with the squishiest cuddles and a far bit of toddler tail fascination before bolting out the door to escape. She is well fed (despite the look she is giving me and the empty bowl below...) but not fat - but still the urge to hunt and subsequently kill still seems to be quite strong.

Last weekend, she pounced out of nowhere on a rainbow lorrikeet - thankfully my husband and a band of teenage boys were also there and managed to grab the bird before the cat had done more than pounce. Now we have a slightly mangled still alive but obviously unwell bird on our hands - what do you do?

I had a number of nice wee candles that had burnt down to the bottom of their containers. They were too nice to throw away and I decided that I might be able to refill them with some more wax that I had lying around and use them again. Jumping straight in as I am apt to do.... I learnt a bit about candle making the hard way!

Here's what I did...

First I gathered up all my old wax. I scooped the wax out of old candles by either melting it for popping the whole container in the freezer for 10 minutes or so - most of the wax just popped out of its container after that!
I bought a length of candle wick from my local handcraft store. This was 6 meters and cost me $4.
I used the double boiler method of melting all my wax together. I used an old tuna can as I was only planning on filling four small candles. Don't let any water boil over into your wax. It will make your candles go funny...
I gently stirred the wax as it melted.
I measured the depth of the candle holders and then doub…

You have an Australian native bee hive and you're keen to add another one to your backyard but don't like the splitting method because of all the bees that get hurt or killed? Then this is the hive duplication method for you! Our 30 page instant downloadable booklet gives you step by step instructions and photos of how to set up and create a new hive - fatality free! It has lots of great images, lots of information including when to remove your eduction, what to do to prevent predators and other trouble shooting hints and tips. Written by Brisbane based backyard native bee keepers, this booklet is like having a friend alongside helping you make decisions every step of the way. It makes a great gift for the native bee keeper in your life or those "impossible to buy for" gardening relatives who love their birds and bugs!

Australian Native Bee Hive Splitting Booklet.

This 30 page booklet will run you through the 5 steps to successfully splitting your Native Australian Carbonaria hive.With a section devoted to trouble shooting and FAQ's there is enough information for you to feel confidant about what to prepare, what to expect and what to do when things don't go to planned. Written by native bee lovers and illustrated with full colour photos, this guide is intended to help you get through that first split and on your way to successful hive propagation in years to come.

Now available as an instant download from SendOwl at AUD $5 payable with PayPal.